Noida: A retired police sub-inspector was cheated out of more than Rs 8.50 lakh by a cyber thug who posed as the government treasury officer to help him with his pension, has an official said Monday.
An FIR has been filed at the Cyber Crime Police Station in Sector 36 of Noida and the police have opened an investigation into the matter, the official said.
On November 21, I received a call from an unknown number. The person on the other side identified himself as a treasury officer from Saharanpur. He said you applied for transfer of your pension to harapur and shared many details about my professional documents convincing me that he is indeed a government agent according to Complainant Bijendra Singh Malik who retired from the service police on July 31.
Malik currently resides in Gautam Buddh Nagar police lines but hails from Saharanpur district.
This person then told me that he was preparing the file for my retirement and that to go further he was going to send me an OTP on my telephone number that I had to share with him. I obliged with the OTP and some other details he requested over the phone. A little later, I received notifications that a sum of Rs 8.62 lakh was withdrawn from my account in two installments, the retired police officer said.
Inspector Reeta Yadav, head of the Cybercrime Police Station here, said the FIR was filed under Sections 420 (cheating), 419 (cheating by impersonation) of the Indian Penal Code and under the provisions of the Information Technology Act.
The case is under investigation and we are working on some leads we have regarding the suspects, Yadav told PTI.
The inspector, meanwhile, warned the general public to be careful when sharing their personal or banking details over the phone or on social media, especially with strangers.
There has been an increase in cases where retired civil servants are being duped under various pretexts related to facilitating their retirement or investment. Thugs have access to a lot of information that is in the public domain and so it is necessary for people to be vigilant when sharing personal information over the phone or on the internet, she said.
Police have also urged people to use the dedicated 1930 or 112 helpline to report any cyber breaches.